diy: make a paper fan photo backdrop

Maybe this is too easy and doesn't need an explanation...
But just in case someone was wondering...

This is how I made the photo booth backdrop for our backyard movie night last week.
And simple or not, I love how it turned out and its effect.

All you need is about 10 bucks and a little patience.

As supplies, I used:
foam core poster boards {it's school supply season right now, so I see them all over and for pretty cheap...but the $1 store carries them!}
packing tape
glue gun
colored 8.5" x 11" copy paper
straight pins

Start by making the paper fans.
My friend Amanda is the queen of pretty paper fan backdrops and has a lovely tutorial for making them on her blog.

And yet I somehow messed up that simple tutorial.
I just folded some sheets of paper the hot dog way {and then in half!} and others the hamburger way and then glued all the sections together and into a circle.
Before I realized that I'd done it all wrong and forgot to cut the paper, it worked!

So choose which method works best for you. ;)

For the actual background, I used 6 foam core poster boards that I taped together.

{If you look closely, you may see that I also wrapped the boards in a white disposable table cloth...I thought it would hide the seams of the pieced together poster boards, but it was really unnecessary!}

Then I just played around with the arrangement of the fans until I found something I liked.
I then glued as many of the fans together as I could to make one big piece.
I tried to also attach them to the foam boards with hot glue, but found pinning them in place worked better!

And as you may have guessed, these things are not indestructible.
So admire their prettiness but don't leave them out in the rain. ;)
xoxo